October 6, 2010

Theory: calling me a slut is no more degrading than calling me an engineer. Each is a limited scope of self.

If I get to interpret slut as a quality, I’ll take empowered woman with a taste for free love. I know the sensations I like & I’m learning how to get them, not indiscriminately, but discriminating only on my own terms. Also, excess is a sensation. Fear is. Diving into the unknown is. If I want these, I may go into certain spaces & be immersed – take your theme parks, I know parties which are roller coasters.
If I take slut as sex worker, then it’s interpretable in as many ways as there are forms of sex work. Sex workers have varying levels of choice with their partners, and of agency with their actions.

Slut implies your sexuality is worth paying for. It also implies that you sell it. And the way people spit that word, it implies you sell for less than the going social value. I think there’s a lot of insight wrapped up in the way we discuss sex work.

To understand your body as something given & traded is smart. Right? Prostitution is the oldest profession. Sexuality gets bartered in vanilla relationships, too, with varying degrees of honesty regarding the value and enjoyment of that transaction. Sluts keep that transparent, and everyone is happy, unless they’re looking in and they’re not..

So maybe calling me slut lets me focus, rather than degrading me.

Or, maybe the grades (degrader “degrade, deprive (of office, rank, etc.),” from des– “down” (see dis-) + L. gradus “step” ) are of social worth, rather than personal lows, levels of happiness, etc. There’s an aspect of degradation which breaks one out of the social contract; where you go next hurts, but it may or may not make you feel genuinely less. Degradation can be simplification. Transformation. Some degradation makes you less, but you learn it’s okay to be less for a while. Or you learn what it is that makes you feel less, and retrace that path to become more. It’s a shaman’s journey into your psyche.

Or: it’s just a gift of power exchange.

As a brat teenager I liked to assert, I never signed the social contract.

Degradation is a two-way street – what kind of man abuses his lover with harsh words ‘n mousetraps? Not a ‘good’ man. Not (in the eyes of most) a kind or skilled lover. But: a brave one.

We go in together, like adventurers. In the low places is, by definition, something we disregarded and forgot. Down in the dust struggling with powerlessness, worshipping that which controls us, we’re able to exist in a real and immediate sense. We’re fallible creatures; and for a while we don’t have to buy into our culture’s standards of perfection or equality. We get to be unfiltered, and free; we’re the best anarchy available in the city, sheltered by the walls of an apartment or dungeon, liberated into a pirate utopia.

We turn around and create a society which furthers our anarchy. (Sells whips, teaches fireplay, organizes events.) My childhood crush on the noble savage meets your violent boyhood fantasies. We get legitimized ‘n connected. Then we go in and express it better and better, pendulum swinging from eloquence to purity.

August 13, 2010

I look down and see fat and bruises and weird curves; it isn’t artistic, it’s hard, I’m being used. And eventually it’s hard when my hands numb and that’s somewhat disturbing though I’m getting used to it. When the mouse-traps clip over my pussy it’s degrading, and degradation changes in nature when there are photographers; implying others’ gaze when you’re not there to witness their reactions; so they can carve you up from scene and circumstance, and crop at will. A lover will know I’m a smart girl with degrees and a dayjob, and that I’ll think about the implications of this afterward. A stranger can crop at will, and I do not control the most striking elements of the picture. I am openly offering my nakedness and endurance, which I value; and the whole world has the jpg’s.

(Then again, strangers see each other in 2d every day. It’s common to be carved and abstracted. But this form I am in is especially ..gratifying? and why would a stranger deserve sexual or psychological gratification from me?
Or why not. Is it not good to be generous? If I can give yet continue to have, and give… and I am learning from having it taken… )

Why is it degrading? Is it that mousetraps inspire such visceral disgust & I’m taking them anyway? Is it that most girls wouldn’t do this, ’cause most girls would think it devalues their pussy? Or themselves? Do I think it’s devaluation? I think it’s my fucking pussy and I get to work with it at will. It’s kind of awesome that I’m strong, but I’m not sure why I’m using my strength this way; I’m okay serving art, but sexuality is harder, and serving others’ psyche when I’m not sure how they see me is weird, you know? What am I making of them? Can I make monsters?

I like bringing beauty. What else is there? What am I offering? Is this sex to you, or pain, or do you like when a girl’s helpless and ashamed, caving in but still naked, ready for the taking, if-she-will-do-this-she-must-do-anything?

Am i being used? The world’s not doing this for the sake of my pride and sexual liberation. There are currencies being traded, lust entertainment spectacle money opportunity friendship connection romance excitement sensation practice..

I’m here in suspension; which began as flight, an art and a pleasure; and it’s not that right now. It’s not even a good pain. It’s tough and I’m trying to please photographers, work well with my rigger, somehow react right. Please a handful of people in their various capacities (even when I try to honestly sink into the experience, I’m unsure whose benefit that’s for.)

What does that make me? An anguissette, a worked-upon canvas? Is the material my body or my head? How would my worth change if I liked it more, if I didn’t, if I was fatter or slenderer? Is it better if I’m smiling, if I’m ashamed, if I like it like sex or as novelty and should I fake any of these? This is work. This is meant to be real. This is meant to bring others pleasure. These photographs will advertise our show thus affecting the rigger, the others he ties, the regret or anticipation of those who have already bought tickets..

Does it matter what I’m thinking, does it show on my face, who’s looking at my face anyway, are they, is it distracting or better if i moan? Scream? I can’t help screaming.

What does this make me? I like giving pleasure, though this is so very indiscriminate; so am I okay making a currency of pleasure? You may have the spectacle; I have your attention. I get tied, which is a part I always love; and I enjoy pain. I get to see the underground close up. I get to participate in an exchange of genuine desire. I get to see lust. I get to see honest reaction. If I’m lucky I get to pull base, uncommon things from the minds and hearts of others. Or I get to inspire experimentation, wonder, curiosity in the audience. Or I’ll be just part of a novel evening and do poorly, in the real event; I don’t get to claim any reaction yet. I get $100; that’s of little relevance. It goes into schoolgirl knee-socks etc.

Afterwards I was quite disappointed in my performance. I let myself get thrown by the photographers and my disobedient schoolgirl-braids, which fell apart and obscured my face. My brother brought me scotch (which I sipped through a red liquorice straw, in a nod to perversity).